


show me yours

by dygonilly



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Infidelity, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Slice of Life, Smoking, it's a mess, junhao are married, mingyu is their neighbour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29476311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dygonilly/pseuds/dygonilly
Summary: The truth is that Mingyu loves Minghao too much to leave him, and Junhui is scared that if Mingyu does leave, then he won’t be enough on his own. But nobody talks about that part.
Relationships: Kim Mingyu/Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8, Kim Mingyu/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 20
Kudos: 115





	show me yours

**Author's Note:**

> this is a little different from the usual programming, but then again.... not sure what the usual is at this point lol. just trying something new! thank you to ao3 users notspring and preciouslittletime for helping me with this one.
> 
> title and inspo from 'savior complex' by phoebe bridgers. specifically [this version](https://open.spotify.com/track/0qebxVUtUoqg9RQG5YjTe3?si=gcOnDvWGTkuGQ7U1P9f60w).
> 
> (context about the infidelity tag in the end notes)

Minghao comes to sit next to him in the grass and Mingyu hands him a cigarette in silence. The air splinters with lighter fuel, a soft glow pooling between Minghao’s palms as though he were creating the fire himself. The sleeves of his cardigan are too stretched out to hang onto his wrists. They pool around his elbows. 

He hands the lighter back to Mingyu a few seconds later, and the illusion is shattered. 

“What did you hear?” Minghao asks, eyes on the water, mouth full of smoke. 

Mingyu has been out here since before the sun set. It always gets colder in the evenings, the sea breeze dragging the temperatures down like a siren. He didn’t think about that when he walked down the path in a thin t-shirt. He makes the same mistake every time.

“Nothing specific,” he replies. 

Minghao blows smoke out the opposite corner of his mouth and looks over at Mingyu with an eyebrow raised.

“Okay, I heard some things,” Mingyu corrects. He turns his body to face Minghao. “Are you alright?” 

_ Do you need me? _

“I’m fine,” Minghao says.

_ I can handle it. _

“It’s nothing we haven’t argued about before,” Minghao adds, free hand coming up to push his fringe out of his eyes. The wind knocks it back, petulant. He looks tired. It’s nothing compared to the weight in Mingyu’s bones. 

He knows he’s one of the reasons they fight. A better man would stick a  _ For Sale _ sign on the door and walk away with all his messy feelings clattering around his ankles like a mourning choir. A better man would have given them more space than some lawn and a path down to the beachfront. 

But he’s not a better man, and maybe none of them are, because he knows that Minghao would only let him get to the end of the driveway before running after him and tugging him back.

Junhui might let him go further. He’d let him drive halfway down the highway before speeding around him and slamming on the brakes, car stretched sideways across both lanes like a blockade. 

_ You can’t just run away, _ he’d yell out of the window.  _ It’s not that simple. _

☼

They used to visit this beach when they were younger, when things were still complicated but it didn't matter so much because none of them had any promises to keep. 

It was summer and Mingyu had finally bought a car for himself. Making it two years into his four year degree felt like something worth celebrating. Halfway there, halfway to go. The road was empty enough for them to soar down it like superheroes. Junhui liked to yell out of the back window to scare the seagulls and Minghao liked to hook his and Mingyu’s pinkies together over the console whenever he thought nobody was looking.

Mingyu never told him that he paid more attention to that single point of contact more than he ever paid attention to the road, because he was afraid Minghao would stop. 

In hindsight, he probably gave Minghao too much credit.

☼

Mingyu pulled the car into park and Minghao looked around them with a confused pout. 

“Did you forget something at my place?” he asked.

“Nope,” Mingyu said brightly. He had wanted it to be a surprise right until the last moment, but this was good enough. He cut the engine and climbed out of the car.

“Wait.” The passenger door swung shut. “You were serious?” 

Mingyu turned to walk backwards up the familiar driveway and pulled the new set of keys out of his pocket, swinging them like a dinner bell. Minghao’s eyes shone like stars. 

“When have I ever joked about anything?” he teased.

Minghao scoffed. “You’ve certainly tried.”

“So you’re saying I don’t have a future in comedy?” 

“I’m saying there are smarter risks to take.”

Mingyu groaned like he’d been shot and Minghao jogged closer just so he could shove at his chest. Mingyu wrangled him into a back hug and shook him like a rag doll until he laughed. They walked the rest of the way like that. Impractical and ridiculous. It was worth it for the way Mingyu felt Minghao exhale when they finally reached the top.

The weatherboard houses were the only two houses on this side of the hill. A second cluster of them sat closer to the south end of the beach, and an apartment complex was in construction further inland, obstructed by trees. When Junhui and Minghao moved in, the day after they got home from their wedding weekend, the couple who lived in the house next door assured them that they would have plenty of privacy. This was their holiday home, after all. They only used it in the summer.

Mingyu always admired the way the second house stood, the colour of the paint and the shape of the garden around the right side. He believed that houses were an extension of people’s hearts, and this one looked kind. He used to joke about buying the place if the older couple ever got tired of using it as a holiday destination. He was never serious about it beyond the strange little fantasies he built for himself before falling asleep.

Then his lease expired. 

Then he went for dinner at Minghao and Junhui’s house and Minghao pointed out the  _ For Sale  _ sign while they were washing the dishes and asked, “How serious were you about moving in next door?”

Junhui was in the back garden, talking loudly on the phone with his mother.

“What does hyung have to say about that idea?” Mingyu asked, passing Minghao a wine glass. 

“He won’t shut up about it, actually. He thinks it would be fun.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Minghao nudged the glass onto the shelf. “He’s the one who got the real estate agent’s phone number.” 

Mingyu finished scrubbing the pots and pans and drowned in his thoughts. He stole glimpses at Minghao’s profile and agonised over how terrible of a decision it would be, to plant himself right beside them, inches from the flame. Too close. Not close enough. 

The sink emptied itself in a whirlpool, bathing them in quiet. Minghao touched a palm to Mingyu’s nape and said, “Think about it.”

_ I have. _ “I will.”

Junhui came back inside with an avalanche of Mandarin falling from his mouth, and Minghao turned to greet him with a smile, and that was that.

Mingyu opened the front door and swept a grandiose arm across his body. Minghao walked past him into the house with an exaggerated bow of thanks. 

Without the furniture, their footsteps echoed. It smelled like cleaning products and the fresh coating of paint above the skirting boards. The windows were closed because the wind was blowing off the ocean today; the salt was already eating the outside of the house so they needed to minimise the damage where they could. Mingyu made a note to check the weather for the rest of the week.

“I’m going to take this wall down,” he said, patting the separation between the kitchen and living room. “Might do some work on the back deck, too. I don’t think they used it much.”

Minghao finished dragging his fingers over a door frame and threw a smile over his shoulder. “Will you ever live somewhere without trying to redesign it first?”

“Well, I could, but then I spent the past four years studying architecture for nothing.”

“You’re such an overachiever,” Minghao said fondly. “You already spend most of your spare time drawing cities that will never exist. Isn’t that enough?” 

“Says the man with a garage full of paintings.”

“Point taken.” He placed a hand on either side of Mingyu’s neck and smiled. His palms were gentle save for the cool bite of his ring. Fourth finger. Til death. It felt so much warmer when Mingyu was the one holding it. “But I still think you’re crazy.”

“Good,” Mingyu whispered.

They shared space like that for a long moment: eyes on each other, hands on each other, swaying to some unheard song. It was the way they had always existed, but the proximity paired with the quiet exhilaration of the moment invited a flood of intrusive thoughts--images of them painting the walls of this house together, bickering over where to put the couch, eating takeout on top of unpacked boxes; collapsing in a heap on the floor at the end of the day, exhausted but in love and held up by nothing but each other. 

The fantasy was immediately chased with a wave of guilt, scattered with longing like debris from a storm. 

Minghao already had that life--Mingyu had helped him build it. He shouldn’t have left so many pieces of himself between the bricks. 

“Are you sure you won’t get sick of us?” Minghao asked, voice small.

Mingyu wanted to say,  _ Shouldn’t I be asking you that instead? _ He wanted to say a lot of things. For someone who had problems shutting himself up, he always found himself going quiet when it mattered. 

Minghao’s phone rang before he could be brave. Or stupid. Minghao pulled back to answer, Mandarin drifting into the space between them. After a moment he put Junhui on speaker and they switched to Korean to delight in the news all together. 

Everything shared. Everything rearranged for Mingyu to fit.

☼

Junhui lets himself into Mingyu’s house the next morning and sits on one of the stools behind the kitchen island, swinging side to side with his palms on the countertop.

“Morning,” Mingyu says without looking over his shoulder.

Junhui hums. “What are you cooking?”

“Why, are you hungry?” Mingyu asks, reaching for the salt.

“No, I ate already.”

He’s hovering. Waiting for something. Mingyu can’t read minds and he can’t solve a problem if it’s not laid out in front of him first, so he does the next best thing.

He slides a plate of food across the counter. “There. Don’t ask me for seconds, I just used my last egg.”

“I told you I already ate,” Junhui says through a mouthful. “And you can take some from us, we have an extra carton.”

“What, just in case?” Mingyu jokes, serving himself. 

Junhui shrugs. “Minghao said you were running low.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Mingyu says quietly. He takes a seat on the opposite side of the island.

“Yeah,” Junhui says, chewing slowly. They eat in silence. Junhui stands up before he’s even finished swallowing his last mouthful. “I think I’m gonna go for a walk. What’s the weather like?”

Mingyu snorts. “Check your phone.”

“It takes too long.”

“Lazy,” Mingyu says. Then, “Forty percent chance of rain at noon. Eighty percent after three.” He checks the forecast before his texts in the morning. It’s an obsessive side effect of living by the coastline. Or maybe Mingyu just likes to know what's going to happen before it does. 

“Cool.” Junhui loads his plate in the dishwasher. “Do you want to come with me?” he asks, sounding hopeful. “Just down to the end of the beach and back.”

“Ah,” Mingyu shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. “I have work to do. Sorry.”

Junhui looks around him to the dining table, covered in sketch pads and drawing instruments. It’s not a total lie, but Mingyu still feels terrible for it, especially when Junhui plasters on a big smile and shrugs like it doesn’t affect him. 

Mingyu can see how wound up he is--it’s all around his eyes and the way he shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his feet. But Mingyu doesn’t know how to comfort him. Not about this. So he takes the coward’s way out, as usual, and stays quiet.

“Well,” Junhui says, when it’s obvious Mingyu isn’t going to extend any kind of olive branch. “Thanks for the food.”

“Yeah, hyung. Any time.” 

☼

For someone who designs angles that interact with each other for a living, Mingyu has never been able to express how he found himself in the middle of his best friend’s marriage. 

The easy answer is that it was a mistake. That one morning, Mingyu woke up and realised he was more than their neighbour, shared more than just a driveway and a sandy path to the shore. 

The difficult answer is that the three of them held onto old dynamics for too long and forgot to build boundaries until it was too late, and by then the foundations were weak at best and forcibly ignored at worst. 

The truth is that Mingyu loves Minghao too much to leave him, and Junhui is scared that if Mingyu does leave, then he won’t be enough on his own. But nobody talks about that part. 

So, you can see the problem. 

☼

After a year of warped cohabitation they’ve built patterns for themselves. Junhui leaves the French doors open when he’s practising the piano. Mingyu rings the doorbell when he’s baked too many muffins for one person. Minghao paints outside when it’s warm--feet bare, shoulders bare, picnic blanket spread out by his side like an invitation. 

So much of what Minghao does feels like just that: an invitation. He asks Junhui to buy an extra carton of eggs at the grocery store. He calls Mingyu when there’s a storm to see if he’s alright. He has sex with Junhui with the windows open and never acknowledges it beyond a raised eyebrow or a smirk around his coffee cup the next morning. 

What is Mingyu supposed to think? If their friendship was a line drawn in the sand then it’s been high tide for months. Years. He can’t even remember at what point Minghao realised Mingyu was in love with him, but he knows it was too late to make much of a difference.

It’s Tuesday, past midnight; a south-easterly is coating the grass with salt. If the patterns are to be followed, which they often are, the high pitched sounds of Junhui getting fucked into the mattress is going to be followed by a weighted blanket of silence. It’s twisted that Mingyu can read the emotional state of their relationship by the sounds of them having sex. It’s twisted that he listens at all. 

Junhui is louder when he’s asking for forgiveness. Minghao talks around his guilt. Mingyu almost had to put headphones on to drown them out tonight, so maybe things have been resolved after all. Then the pattern breaks. He hears voices above the late night sounds of the ocean. Despite how close their houses are, it’s too low to understand, but it sounds like another argument.

Mingyu rolls over in bed, feeling the usual mix of upset, turned-on and guilty as he tries to fall asleep. He is just about to drift off when the sound of the front door opening echoes through the house.

Minghao is leaning against the door with his head tipped back, eyelids heavy. He reanimates when he sees Mingyu. “Hey. Sorry if I woke you.”

“What are you doing here?” 

Minghao straightens up. His body is draped in shadows and moonlight coming in from the kitchen. He’s always been beautiful, but it’s the intangible parts of him that haunt Mingyu the most--the parts he cannot reach. Maybe nobody can. Maybe that’s what makes them so enticing.

“Do I need a reason to visit?”

“At two in the morning, after arguing with your husband?” Mingyu asks, sharper than he intends. “Yeah, Myungho, you kind of need a reason.”

Minghao’s face twists. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make it sound like I’m the only one doing something wrong.”

He walks over to the chest of drawers and rummages around until he finds Mingyu’s car keys. He throws them almost carelessly across the room and Mingyu catches them one handed.  _ Drive me somewhere.  _ It’s more of a demand than a request, but it still gives Mingyu the choice. Most people would just take the car themselves. Minghao isn’t most people.

Mingyu grabs a jacket and the pack of cigarettes he opened this morning. He follows Minghao down the driveway in silence. They both ignore the light that turns on in the second house like a flicker of hope.

☼

They bend around the ocean road like they used to. 

Minghao smokes out the window, elbow on the doorframe, head heavy against the heel of his palm. Mingyu used to get annoyed at him for smoking inside the car because the smell lingers in the upholstery, and he would spend too long scrubbing the seats after each time, but he gave up on asking a few months ago. It just didn’t seem worth the trouble. Junhui still wrinkles his nose when Minghao kisses him after he’s been smoking, so Minghao stopped kissing him after he’d been smoking. 

Around the last bend, Minghao starts crying. Quiet, slow tears that drop unceremoniously into his lap. Mingyu silently takes a hand off the wheel and drops it onto Minghao’s thigh, palm up. 

He doesn’t take his eyes off the road when Minghao links their fingers together--gently at first, and then so tight it feels desperate. He just squeezes back and turns around to drive them home.

☼

Minghao gets in his car smelling like Junhui and gets out of it smelling like cigarettes. There’s a metaphor, there. Something about bad habits and shaking fingers. Mingyu thinks it’s overdone. He writes it down anyway.

☼

Mingyu was ready to fall asleep for twelve hours the second he unpacked the last box of cutlery, but Junhui had other ideas. He barrelled into the house with a wine bottle in his hand.

“Come on, sun’s going to set soon.”

They had the beach to themselves, save for an old woman and her labrador who ran into Minghao’s arms like he recognised him. They spoke briefly, and Mingyu felt positively buoyant when Minghao introduced him to the woman as  _ our new neighbour! _ She recognised him, of course--he was here all the time anyway. But this felt different. Special. 

The feeling lingered as they moseyed alongside the water, passing the bottle between them, talking in circles the way you do when you’ve known people for half your life. The sun bled out behind the clouds. Mingyu thought about Minghao’s mouth around the lip of the bottle when he took a sip for himself. 

“Will we even need to have Sunday dinners anymore?” Minghao asked, kicking arcs of sand as he walked.

“Why? You don’t like having me around?” Mingyu goaded.

“Yes, it’s a terrible burden,” Minghao said, hand to his forehead. Mingyu giggled and took another sip of wine to suffocate the sound.

“You can just cook for us every night,” Junhui suggested. He picked up a random shell and put it in his pocket. “Problem solved.”

“I’m not your butler!” 

Junhui gasped. “So you  _ didn’t _ move in next door to cater to our every whim and desire? I got a little bell and everything.”

The others laughed, but Mingyu felt like someone had just popped a balloon in front of his nose. He frantically shoved the bitterness away before it showed on his face; he didn’t have the right to feel hurt. 

His next sip of wine was big enough to spill over his chin. Minghao casually reached up to wipe the liquid away with his thumb before popping it into his own mouth. “Messy,” he said, eyes on Mingyu like a weight. 

Mingyu’s stomach fell into the sand. It felt like he was constantly dropping bits of himself around Minghao, breathlessly waiting for him to notice. It looked like he noticed. How could he not.

Without warning, Junhui hoisted Minghao up by his thighs and carried him into the waves, ignoring the way Minghao shrieked to be let go. 

They waded deep enough for the water to lap around their thighs and laughed into each others’ mouths. A wave crashed against their bodies, and they stumbled, kissing some more.

Mingyu let the water gnaw at his ankles and thought about what it would be like. To be either of them. Minghao, with the ocean at his back and Junhui, all along his front. 

He finished the wine to its terrible dregs. Minghao made eye contact with him over Junhui’s shoulder and reached out a hand. Mingyu tossed the bottle into the sand and walked in to meet them.

**Author's Note:**

> the emotional infidelity refers to minghao being married to junhui and holding mingyu closer than he probably should. the lines between all three of them are quite blurred, but mingyu doesn't do much to hide how much he loves minghao, and minghao doesn't do much to stop him. people are imperfect. it would probably help if they talked about it.
> 
> thank u for reading, and i'm sorry for appropriating the beach-house gyuhao lore like this. it plagues me.


End file.
